Page 85 of Wonder

I’m scared. Petrified about tomorrow, and what it will bring.

Who I might lose.

Aiden doesn’t stop stroking my hair. “That feels nice.”

He hums lightly, a comforting sound. “All we need is a bedtime story.”

“Tell me one.” I shift, glancing up at them both. “Tell me a story… about you. How did you end up here? Or… anything, really.”

Anything that gets me out of my own head and gives me more information about what’s going on inside theirs.

They exchange looks. Kayden nods, and Aiden looks down at me.

“Close your eyes.”

34 – Aiden

My stomach flips, even as I run my fingers through Alyss’s hair. She curls up against me, and Kayden tugs his blanket over, making sure that it’s covering her.

“Once upon a time, there was a little boy and his brother. They lived in a tiny apartment with their mom, and you never saw one without the other. Their mom was…,”

I sigh. “Not a good person. She liked to go out a lot, and a lot of the time, she’d forget to leave food. So the little boy and his brother got really good at making do. The oldest twin – by three minutes – wanted to learn to cook, so he started to climb up and learned how to use the cooker.”

She tenses beneath me. I keep stroking her hair until her muscles relax.

“Who is the oldest?” Her voice is soft.

“Kayden.” I half-smile. “Obviously. Can’t you tell?”

He snorts.

“Their mom would often have friends come over. They were loud, and they’d shout a lot, and they liked to smoke funnycigarettes that made the brother’s head hurt, so they always slept next to an open window, even when it was raining.

“Sometimes they were nice friends, and they’d bring food in brown bags and ask the brothers questions about school, but they didn’t know what school was. And sometimes they’d only bring shouting, and fists. And those days were bad, because their mom would lock them in the bedroom, and they’d climb into the closet and hold onto each other tightly until the shouting stopped. Sometimes they’d stay in there for a really long time.”

Long enough to go past the point of needing the bathroom.

I feel Kayden’s eyes on my face.

“One day,” I force out. “When they were… nine, maybe. Or ten. Their mom wasn’t great at remembering – the oldest was trying to cook this small bag of food he’d found on the table, and their mom walked in. She had a friend with her, and he got really angry. He started hitting the younger twin, and the older twin took the pan off the cooker and hit him with it. It burned all of the friend’s arm.”

She stirs. “Good.”

“But,” I say softly. “He was only a kid, and the friend was bigger.”

My throat burns.

“The friend pushed him down on the floor. And it hurt, and his knee wasbreaking, and their mother held the younger twin down and made him watch.”

My voice cracks.

“Their mother took the twins into the bedroom, and she locked the door.” Kayden’s voice is deep, deep with remembered pain as he picks the story up, as my voice fails. His hand drifts down to his knee, rubbing it. “She left them there for a long time. The oldest twin – he was in a lot of pain, and the younger twin knew that he wouldn’t get any help. So he climbed out of the window – on the second floor – and found someone on the street.”

Alyss shifts. One hand slips into mine.

The other slips into Kayden’s.

I pick back up. “A lot of people came to the house, and they took the twins away. They put them in a hospital with really nice food, and gave them new clothes, and they tried to fix the older twin’s knee.”